Imagine what we can do today that I'm sure people in 1912 never thought we would be able to do

How far have we really come since then though? Airplanes and automobiles were already in production, energy was being used, modern physics and medicine had been/was being developed. The framework for our scientific advancements were laid out for us in that era.

I find one thing common around the tech boom era is that people vastly overestimate what we will be capable of in the next few decades. You can look back to movies created in the 1980s that portray our time (>2000) owning flying cars and hovering skateboards. Viewing those movies now we think "how silly" yet we do the same thing when we talk about interstellar travel and weather/tectonic control within the next 100 years.

How far have we really come since then though? Airplanes and automobiles were already in production, energy was being used, modern physics and medicine had been/was being developed. The framework for our scientific advancements were laid out for us in that era.

I find one thing common around the tech boom era is that people vastly overestimate what we will be capable of in the next few decades. You can look back to movies created in the 1980s that portray our time (>2000) owning flying cars and hovering skateboards. Viewing those movies now we think "how silly" yet we do the same thing when we talk about interstellar travel and weather/tectonic control within the next 100 years.

I guess time will only tell.

I dunno, I think it's a bit silly to compare automobiles of 1912 to 2012 and downplay that achievement. You have to consider the range of the car now, the fuel efficiency as examples. All the small features within a car, like hands free calling as you're driving, the ability to have USB ports in cars now to hook up your smart phone to stream media from.

The same goes for airplanes and the efficiency and range of those. The fact we've successfully landed a rover on Mars. The fact we actually put human beings on the moon. We've traveled to outer space and can have people actively living in the ISS outside of our own planet.

Looking at it from a militaristic point of view, the way wars were fought and the weaponry used in World War I to what multiple nations are now capable of.

Lines of communication. I can INSTANTLY connect with anyone anywhere in the world at anytime. That's brilliant. What used to take weeks to inform someone of now takes seconds.

From a cultural point of view, the advancement of civil rights. Doing away with segregation laws, allowing gay marriage, etc.

The evolution of a phone for example is quite an improvement. Old rotary phones to literally being able to access any content at any moment in the palm of your hand from your pocket is incredible.

I think you're really underplaying it.

bk said:

I used to beat off alot, and fail all my classes

Insight said:

I figured he's a phony but I was secretly hoping to get pounded by someone famous.

I dunno, I think it's a bit silly to compare automobiles of 1912 to 2012 and downplay that achievement. You have to consider the range of the car now, the fuel efficiency as examples. All the small features within a car, like hands free calling as you're driving, the ability to have USB ports in cars now to hook up your smart phone to stream media from.

The same goes for airplanes and the efficiency and range of those. The fact we've successfully landed a rover on Mars. The fact we actually put human beings on the moon. We've traveled to outer space and can have people actively living in the ISS outside of our own planet.

Looking at it from a militaristic point of view, the way wars were fought and the weaponry used in World War I to what multiple nations are now capable of.

Lines of communication. I can INSTANTLY connect with anyone anywhere in the world at anytime. That's brilliant. What used to take weeks to inform someone of now takes seconds.

From a cultural point of view, the advancement of civil rights. Doing away with segregation laws, allowing gay marriage, etc.

The evolution of a phone for example is quite an improvement. Old rotary phones to literally being able to access any content at any moment in the palm of your hand from your pocket is incredible.

I think you're really underplaying it.

My point is that they probably did dream of what we have now, considering it is just an improvement on what they had then. Manipulating weather and tectonic activity is a completely different ballpark, fuck we don't even have a mechanism to predict it.

Breadstick, on 29 November 2012 - 04:38 AM, said:

consider the fact that it took less than 100 years after the airplane was invented for us to put someone on the moon

And what have we done since then? Moon landing was in 1969 if we continued this exponential advancement we should've had the whole thing terraformed by now. Resource issue? Maybe. I guess when we develop an infinite power source we will be able to find out. I guess I'll check back into this thread in 100years, should be possible with all the advancements eh? lol

It's only a resource issue because NASA doesn't receive the funding for those kinds of projects that military R&D does. If there was a 100% chance there was a resource to mine from Mars that would enhance the U.S. military over everyone else by a large magnitude, I'd be willing to bet anything NASA would receive more funding for their R&D. As it stands now, NASA just really does shit for the sake of science and exploration but there's not a lot of applicable uses for traveling the solar system in the government's eyes. Further more, NASA's hands are a bit tied over public opinion of them not being exactly extremely popular due to disasters like the Challenger (again coupled with, "What are we really gaining outside pursuit of science for the sake of science).

We're certainly more capable making further reaching technological advancements than we have but: (1) Public hysteria/opinion can and will take precedence over scientific/technological achievements and (2) the funding isn't there from a government perspective.

A lot of cool and useful technologies or new breakthroughs in science typically come from the state of war and that's been true throughout mankind. Perfect example is the development of the atom bomb. The economy in the U.S. always seems to thrive when there's a war (an actual important war, see: WWI & WWII for example). Jobs are created for militaristic purposes driven by the need to increase production and manufacturing with a determination to beat an opposition.

bk said:

I used to beat off alot, and fail all my classes

Insight said:

I figured he's a phony but I was secretly hoping to get pounded by someone famous.

I never said that we weren't capable of making more technological advancements but was rather being reasonable/conservative in my expectations.

A lot of cool technology does come out of wars but I'm not sure that was where the innovation of those projects come from. Nuclear Fission for instance (the mechanism behind the atom bomb) was theorized and practiced prior to the war. I also think that war now a days isn't the economy booster it use to be, I'd argue the contrary.